User Guide

114 Chapter 2: ActionScript Language Reference
Array.sort()
Availability
Flash Player 5; additional capabilities added in Flash Player 7.
Usage
my_array.sort() : Array
my_array.sort(compareFunction:Function) : Array
my_array.sort(option:Number | option |... ) : Array
my_array.sort(compareFunction:Function, option:Number | option |... ) : Array
Parameters
compareFunction
A comparison function used to determine the sorting order of elements in
an array. Given the elements A and B, the result of
compareFunction can have one of the
following three values:
• -1, if A should appear before B in the sorted sequence
• 0, if A equals B
• 1, if A should appear after B in the sorted sequence
option One or more numbers or names of defined constants, separated by the | (bitwise OR)
operator, that change the behavior of the sort from the default. The following values are
acceptable for
option:
• 1 or Array.CASEINSENSITIVE
• 2 or Array.DESCENDING
• 4 or Array.UNIQUESORT
• 8 or Array.RETURNINDEXEDARRAY
• 16 or Array.NUMERIC
For information on this parameter, see Array.sortOn().
Note: Array.sort() is defined in ECMA-262, but the array sorting options introduced in Flash
Player 7 are Flash-specific extensions to the ECMA-262 specification.
Returns
The return value depends on whether you pass any parameters, as described in the following list:
• If you specify a value of 4 or Array.UNIQUESORT for option and two or more elements being
sorted have identical sort fields, Flash returns a value of 0 and does not modify the array.
• If you specify a value of 8 or Array.RETURNINDEXEDARRAY for option, Flash returns an array
that reflects the results of the sort and does not modify the array.
• Otherwise, Flash returns nothing and modifies the array to reflect the sort order.
Description
Method; sorts the elements in an array. Flash sorts according to Unicode values. (ASCII is a subset
of Unicode.)